People have used traditional film cameras to take pictures for many years. The exposed film was taken or sent for processing. A laboratory processed the film from these cameras and prints of varying sizes were returned to the photographer. These prints were then stored or displayed in various ways. One method was to store and use many photos to create a photo album or photo book. These books held the photo in pockets, sleeves or with special corners or tape.
More recently, digital cameras have become very popular. Because of this, and the ease of access to the Internet, there has been a tremendous change in how many pictures are printed, displayed and stored. One of these changes is that people can now take pictures and then send them, via the Internet, to companies that can print their photos and return them by mail. Another option offered by these same companies is the ability to create a custom photo book or album from the pictures submitted. These photo books are created using software that can be downloaded by the photographer that allows them to control the content and appearance of the book.
Once the book has been created in digital form it is printed on specialized digital printing equipment that can efficiently print as little as one copy of a book. After printing, the pages are trimmed to size and bound creating a finished book. Typically these books are bound using a process sometimes called perfect binding. This approach would be used in creating a soft cover book. In this process the printed sheets are aligned together on the spine. An adhesive, usually a hot melt adhesive, is applied to the edge of the spine and a cover is quickly wrapped around the stack of sheets and held firmly. After the adhesive cools, the sheets have been bound into the cover and the book is finished.
In an alternative method to make a hard cover book, a hot melt adhesive is pre-applied by the manufacturer of the covers to the inside center of the cover. The end user can later take printed sheets and insert them into the cover. After insertion of the sheets into the cover, the cover is then placed on a heated plate spine end down. The hot melt adhesive softens to the point that the sheets sink into the adhesive. The heat is then removed and the adhesive cools, bonding the sheets into the cover. The book is then finished. There are many other methods for hard and soft cover book binding and these are only examples.